My Reading Update

Last year Mike read through 50+ books and this year has a goal of reading 52 books (that’s one a week for my math challenged friends). He threw the challenge out there and I answered the bell. So far a lot of my reading has come through the gift of nine free ebooks for Christmas from ereader.com. I’m ahead of the scheduled four books so here’s the list:

1. Brisingr – Christopher Paolini
I know it’s supposed to be young adult fiction but the guy has really improved his writing since the first book and I enjoy the occasional Dragon story.

2. Jesus Wants to Save Christians – Rob Bell and Don Golden
If you’ve never read anything critiquing western Christianity then this is a good start. If you have then don’t waste your time on a book that basically just rehashes what others have said without offering any real solutions or new insights.

3. 4th Wish – Ed Howdershelt (free ebook)
It’s a short genie-in-a-bottle story. What can I say, it was free.

4. Free-Range Chickens – Simon Rich (free ebook)
It’s basically just a book full of short snippets of what are occasionally funny thoughts. For free it was alright, but to pay money for it would be a terrible waste.

5. Murder List – Julie Garwood (free ebook)
It was sold as a murder mystery thriller about a guy who was killing all the worldly enemies of a damsel in distress on his way to hunting her down too. It turned out to be about 10% murder mystery and 90% awkward love story between damsel in distress and the detective assigned to be her bodyguard. I kept reading hoping it would get interesting and then it was over. Again, for free it was “meh” but for any amount of money it would be a terrible waste.

6. The End of Reason – Ravi K. Zacharias
It’s essentially a reasoned response to “The New Atheists” works that have been selling like hotcakes for a few years now. The response was generally fairly solid and even handed, but his unnecessary shots at Islam near the end of the book were kind of out of line.

7. The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death – Laurie Notaro (free ebook)
This was a very stupid book full of short anecdotes of the author’s daily life. I usually enjoy quirky stories, but this was not really that funny, interesting or even ironic. It had some funny bits, but no worldly wisdom that I couldn’t have found on the average cocktail napkin or the inside of a truck stop bathroom stall. Again, for free it had some funny parts, but not worth wasting any money on.

So as you can see, my reading thus far has been primarily composed of free fluff that I’ve got from ereader.com so I’ve just read it on the go on my Q. I can’t say as I’m proud to announce I’ve read some of them, but I’m doing my best to give a lot of different kinds of books a read this year just to see what I like or not. Hopefully I can find a few more authors to add to my must-read list. I hope to do a little more substantive reading as the year goes on and I have a bit more time with Jenn going to only part-time teaching instead of full-time as it’s been for the past five months. With book sales and free ebooks having accumulated over the Christmas season, I think I still have at least sixteen more books to go in my stack before I look at getting something new.

I’m about halfway through four others that should be added to the list soon (Christian Culture Survival Guide by Matthew Turner, Christianity’s Dangerous Idea by Allister McGrath, The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst, The Voice of Hebrews by Greg Garret and David Capes). I’ll try to post them as I read them from here on out.

I’m bringing you a book to read (if you wish). It’s called “The Goodbye Generation” written by David Sawler. The subtitle is “A conversation about why youth and young adults leave the church.” I have not read it, but it is one that Tyson and Josh are looking at. I’ll read it after you’re done with it and then I’ll pass it on to Jonny.